If you study photography, one of the key lessons you'll learn is the importance of establishing context. Whatever your subject is, include just enough of its surroundings to give it a sense of time and place. If you pay attention around here, you'll see me do that a lot. Not just a bird, but a bird with a hint of Poly behind it. Not just a tree branch, but a tree branch in the foreground with a hint of the Japan Pavilion in the distance.
But rules are made to be broken and, because of the nature of what we do here, sometimes removing context makes the setting our little secret. No one but us needs to know that that butterfly was in the tent at Flower & Garden. Or that that ornate staircase is in a tucked away corner of the Italy Pavilion. Sometimes, the magic is that something that would look like just another beautiful scene to someone else is really your favorite view over the water at Geyser Point.
It's always deliberate, but the rules can change based on what we're doing together that morning.
And so today, no one but you and I need to know that this mass of cherry blossoms in full bloom is actually just over the Outpost signage of the Africa area in World Showcase. No one else needs to know that this was all we saw as we stood waiting in a crowd for the drawbridge to be lowered so that we could cross.
I've written about cherry blossoms before. About how the Japanese revere them not because they last forever but because they are so short-lived. They are beautiful for the blink of an eye, and then they are gone. A naturally occurring lesson in the transience of life and everything within it, teaching us to appreciate things without clinging to them.
No one needs to know that it's also a picture of our favorite theme park. 🤫😉
Taken at 120mm, 1/2500 second, f/2.8, ISO 125.